Stupid Phone Surveys

I've taken Amtrak's Accela to and from New York several times in the last couple of years and I've mostly been happy with it. My other option is to drive and in comparison I get to relax, read, watch a movie on my laptop etc. I buy a business class ticket which is about $80 each way, There's also a more expensive first class but it's not worth the difference in price to me. In business class I get a seat that's like a first class seat on a plane and my own power outlet, and a good amount of leg room. The regular regional train is longer, less comfortable, less smooth, without power outlets and the car loses all power at various points during the trip.

So at 6:25pm today I got a call from Amtrak asking me to do a phone survey for them. I'm annoyed to get the phone survey during dinner time, but I'm not actually eating and I like Amtrak so I say ok. First they ask me to count all my trips via Amtrak over the last year, but I have to count round trips as 2. Ok I can do that. Then I get questions about alternatives means of travel and was it for business or pleasure. Ok but it was annoying that they had to continue to ask each question even though my answers had already accounted for all the trips. Then we had to deal with how how I got to/from the train station. I drove and left a car but I think that involved 4 questions and we had to answer for each leg. So if I drove and left a car on the way there did I perhaps take a bus home? He then asked me various questions about what was important to me amongst reliability, price, and travel time.

Then they evidently wanted to find what fares I would be willing to pay for the various services. He listed hypothetical prices for the 4 services levels (Accela first and business and Regional business and regular) and ask which I would buy. There were about six of these. My answer was always the Accela business because I don't like the regional service and the first class accela isn't worth whatever extra price. But I had to hear each question, including the boilerplate each time about "for your trip between New York Pennsylvania Station and New England Route 128 station..."

So I'm annoyed and I check the timer on my phone and it's been 15 minutes. He begins the next series of questions. "Now assume there are four levels of service between New York Pennsylvania Station and New England Route 128 station and they are Accela first class, Accela business class, regional business class and regional regular service. And the price for each is as follows, and he gave prices, and the on time reliability percentages for each of the four are, and he gave them, and the total travel time for each of the four is, and he gave them..."

And I stopped him and said how many of these are there going to be? And he said it depends on the speed of the answers but about 20 minutes. I was stunned. First of to ask a 30 minute phone survey is ridiculous. Second, the form of the questions while perhaps helpful to collect statistics, was annoying and time wasting. They have my email address, they send me statements, online this would have been trivial. But to read all of these choices out and make someone remember them all while answering is moronic. I stopped him and said basically what's in the first paragraph above, that should be useful info to them and asked if I could help them with anything else. This really stunned him. "Uh well if you're not willing to continue the survey no there isn't really anything else." Well thank you very much. Click. No wonder Amtrak isn't doing well.